The Best Time To Book A Plane Ticket
According To New Study
by Suzy Strutner Posted: 03/01/2014
Finally, there’s a scientific answer to that magic number of days before a flight when tickets are at their cheapest.
The answer?
Are you ready?
Are you reeeally ready?
Are you ready?
Are you reeeally ready?
Fifty-four days
before takeoff is, on average, when domestic airline tickets are at
their absolute lowest price. And if you don’t hit 54 days on the head,
you should usually book between 104 to 29 days before your trip --
within the “prime booking window” -- for the lowest possible prices. In this window, ticket prices typically hover within $10 of the lowest price they’ll ever reach.
At least that’s what the data from 2013 tells us.
The folks at CheapOair spent the last year analyzing over four million airline trips.
They tracked ticket prices from 320 days before takeoff all the way up
until the day before, calculating precisely which day each one hit its
lowest point.
Air travelers tend to believe they’ll find the
lowest of low prices when they book “at the last minute.”
The researchers found that, on average, a ticket was at its highest price
on the day before the flight. The second-highest price was two days
before the flight, the third-highest was three days before… and so on,
all the way to 13 days before the flight.
This pretty much solidifies the rule that you should NEVER book your ticket within two weeks of a flight… a mistake that 36 percent of CheapOair users made when planning their trips.
While the researchers found that 54 days was indeed the magic number for booking on average, they’re quick to point out that this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule: your flight’s “best price” window depends a lot on the specific trip you’re taking.
If
you’re going somewhere incredibly popular at an incredibly popular time
-- like spring break in Florida, for example -- you should book well
before the “prime booking window” begins. When there’s constant, strong
demand for a flight, the researchers explain,
airlines have no incentive to lower ticket prices as time goes on. The
same principle holds true for flights to hard-to-reach airports in small
cities: there’s little airline competition here, so ticket prices don’t
drop nearly as much over their lifespan.
Foreign countries are
incredibly popular destinations with hard-to-reach airports, so the
researchers suggest booking much earlier than the 54 days recommended
for domestic flights.
Here are the “magic numbers” for some common international destinations:
- Europe: 151 days before your flight
- Asia: 129 days before your flight
- The Caribbean: 101 days before your flight
- Mexico: 89 days before your flight
- Latin America: 80 days before your flight
Happy booking, travelers!
This goes against everything airline analysts have said the last few
years. I think probably because the only type of flight included in the
study were non-stops. Think about how often you get to fly non-stop.
It's probably almost never, and those flights are more expensive
anyways. Everything that airfare watchdogs say is that Tuesday
afternoon through Thursday morning are when fares are at their lowest
due to competing airlines releasing discounted fares to undercut each
other. And, weekends are by far the most expensive time to purchase
tickets because demand has driven the prices back up.
When to Buy Plane Tickets
Turns Out There Is A Magical Day To Book Your Plane Ticket
The Huffington Post
|
Suzy Strutner
|
Posted 03.01.2014
|
Travel
Finally, there’s a scientific answer to that magic number of days before a flight when tickets are at their cheapest. The answer? Are you ready? ...
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